Saturday, November 19, 2016

My mini rant today is about the in flight snacks on airlines, specifically Delta. I told a close friend of mine that in Atlanta we're insanely brand loyal. We drink Coke, we fly Delta. So it's Delta on which I fly and Delta is the warm bosom of familiarity to me when I take to the skies.

Knowing their routines, their banter and chatter is comforting when you're racing through the skies at insane speeds and at 35k feet. I like knowing the DRILL.

But I find it annoying that on shorter hops their snacks are ABSOLUTE SHIT.

Once upon a time you got peanuts and a beverage. These were the dark, ancient times of air travel. It's possible these medieval times exist on other airlines but I don't know about it - as I'm from Atlanta and we fly DELTA.

In a perfect world, one just short of them serving you food, they offer the perfect accompaniment to their quite excellent coffee - BISCOFF cookies.

These cookies are so damned good they are almost a sin. They're like some delicious variation of what a pecan sandy aspires to be. Slightly caramelized, they are amazing both as an accompaniment to the delicious Starbucks coffee served or just dunked straight the hell in some black coffee.

On shorter hops,less than 90 minutes is the magic line in the sand based on my own travel experience, you get...MINI PRETZELS.

These are possibly the stupidest snack in the world. While you do have the option of getting a soda, water, juice or some more PRETZEL APPROPRIATE beverage with it - do you SEE how small this thing is? I think an adult doesn't actually have to chew them.

Additionally all the do is make you angry you didn't actually have a snack. Here's your pop, here's your mini-pretzels for your giant man hands. Take it easy there GIGANTOR, don't eat them all at once!

I was thinking about this on the way home from Indy, about how this is one of the stupidest refreshment services I ever encounter. People might argue that they're free but I just paid a fortune in airfare no they aren't free they're calculated into the cost I can guarantee you that. So I'm PAYING for micro-pretzels. Nano-pretzels, if you will.

I think a huge problem with my level of dismay would be best stated as the complete lack of satisfaction they provide AS a snack. If someone had set out a huge tray of cheese and sliced a cheese cube in half and gave that to you, that's what eating these pretzels is like. It could be good, but it's just....eh.

Part of this whole "these don't satisfy anyone" may simply be due to the huge calorie deficit they represent.

Delta Airlines - Biscoff Cookies (2-pack)

Calories

120

Sodium

Total Fat

5 g

Potassium

Saturated

2 g

Total Carbs

Polyunsaturated

0 g

Dietary Fiber

Monounsaturated

0 g

Sugars

Biscoff cookies come to the table with 120 calories and a bit of fat. They aren't a meal but generally I land after a couple of hours and I'm not going to die if I don't eat soon. In fact there were plenty of instances where I didn't get to eat for hours (mostly due to other people being quite rude) and Biscoff cookies kept me alive, like some sweet delicious foreign hard-tack .

Mini-Pretzels though?

Calories

45

Sodium

Total Fat

1 g

Potassium

Saturated

0 g

Total Carbs

Polyunsaturated

0 g

Dietary Fiber

Monounsaturated

0 g

Sugars

This is the sort of snack that people who say things like "Oh dear I forgot to eat today" might consider a real snack. This is the devil's work, in snack form.

It's complete bullshit. That's what it is.

Luckily I was wise on my outgoing flight and ingested a chicken biscuit and a sweet tea because it's Atlanta, so when I landed in Indy I wasn't ready to eat the entire city. But on my return flight there were delays, there was so much WALKING, there was construction, there was nothing but annoyance on my sojourn north and I had no choice but to slam a bunch of popcorn chicken, fries and a peanut butter and chocolate shake from Sonic.